Rival churches fight to recruit cute kids for lambs’ offering

LOS ANGELES,Calif. --- The Southern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has declared a state of emergency in the greater Los Angeles area as an all-out battle rages between Adventist area churches.

"As bizarre as it sounds, the source of our conflict is a pool of cute kids under the age of 10," said Southern California Conference Education Department spokesperson, Manny Niño. "Churches need these little munchkins for fundraising purposes. Lambs' offerings are a great revenue stream and right now there is a highly finite number of children that churches have to send down the aisles to the tune of Hear the Pennies Dropping."

Niño explained that larger churches in the area have hired recruiters to visit Adventist elementary schools as far out as Loma Linda in order to recruit cute kids and their parents to their churches.

"Churches send scouts to Adventist school events to find families with kids that fit the bill. The right child candidate has an irresistible smile and cute chubby hands that you just have to give money to."

Niño said that local pastors have started to complain that baby headhunters from rival Adventist churches have even begun to infiltrate their churches on Sabbath morning. "It is not OK to volunteer to tell children's story just so you can recruit our kids," said White Memorial Church Assistant Pastor Frank Petit. "The same goes for hitting up our Pathfinder Club. Our kids were hard won. Find your own lambs."

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7 Comments

Yes, it’s all about money . . . you can read the Bible and and feed the hungry, care for the sick, shelter the homeless, and pray, alone or with others, without supporting a huge religious corporation.

If He showed up and saw the hundreds of billions the churches (not just the Adventists) spend on buildings and operations, I wonder, What would Jesus say?

Reading the Gospels, I see that there is no record of Jesus saying, “Create a new religion to worship me! Build thousands of churches all over the world!” No, he said, “Feed the hungry, care for the sick, shelter the stranger, the homeless, whatever you have done for them, you have done for me.”

I’m not sure that you understand this publication (Barely Adventist) is Adventists making fun of themselves. Most people who read it are looking for something humorous. What you say is true, but this isn’t really the best place to share those sentiments if you want to bash the Christian custom of collecting offerings.

Here are some ideas:
1. Hold a toddler beauty pageant for vespers and offer SDA school scholarships for participating in lamb’ offerings
2. Schedule lambs’ offerings on the calendar so that the cute kids can collect offerings on a circular basis. One week at Northridge. Another week at Van Nuys. You get the picture. Everywhere in LA is 20 minutes.
3. Offer serious snacks.

Hey, Our local church has a few of those “cute” kids you want. Come on down a recruit them all!!. I think I saw one of those recruiters a few weeks ago at the Laguna Neigel SDA church. Somebody correct me on that!! Go, little lambs, go. Collect those coins.

“Manny Niño” – what a clever name for the education spokesperson. Yes, there are many children. So why the concern over the “finite number of [cute] children that churches have to send down the aisles”? I think nearly all children are cute, not just those with “an irresistible smile and chubby hands.”

Leave the poor kids alone, ya’ll. Stop competing to have them as your offering collectors. You’re gonna give ’em a complex, or something.

The cute little things have enough on their plate, what with all the soccer games, ballet lessons, piano recitals, Little League baseball, and video game addictions. Add “offering collection” to their busy schedule, and they might have a nervous breakdown. Let kids be kids!

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